


Take Me Out Tonight

by ellacj



Series: 52 Weeks of Swan Queen [35]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, F/F, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Rebellion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-02
Updated: 2015-09-02
Packaged: 2018-04-18 17:01:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4713647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellacj/pseuds/ellacj
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"When I'm falling in love with someone, time seems to be moving faster."</p><p>-Taylor Swift</p>
            </blockquote>





	Take Me Out Tonight

There’s that sound again.

It’s unmistakable to someone like Emma, the sound of a can of spray paint being shaken. She’s been around it enough to know it. She turns around to face the only other person in the parking lot, spraying an ugly word onto the car of none other than Principal Cora Mills.

“Mills isn’t gonna be too happy about that,” she says casually, reaching over and snatching the can from the person’s hand.

“Give that back!” the girl hisses. The hood of her sweatshirt falls from her face as she struggles with Emma for the can, and Emma’s eyebrows shoot straight up when she sees who it is.

“Regina?”

“Emma.” Regina narrows her eyes. “Don’t tell anyone or so help me I will _end_ you.”

Emma smirks. “I won’t tell. But you gotta do something for me.”

“What do you want?”

“Buy me dinner tonight.”

Regina frowns. “That’s it?”

“When you live like I do, dinner’s a lot.” Emma shrugs. “Finish up. I’ll drive.”

Emma supposes Regina’s brow is going to be permanently furrowed for the rest of the night, because it doesn’t budge from its frown as she finishes the last _t_ with a flourish. She stands up to admire her handiwork.

“‘Cunt’,” Emma reads. She nods thoughtfully. “Wouldn’t have thought that word was in your vocabulary.”

“Shut up.” Regina tosses the now-empty can into the trash can nearby and stalks over to Emma’s car. “Let’s get this over with.”

“Of course. Because God forbid you ever enjoy the company of anyone other than your mirror.”

“I don’t enjoy blackmail.”

Emma shakes her head. “It’s not blackmail. It’s a mutually beneficial arrangement. Symbiosis.”

Regina doesn’t reply. She sits in silence while Emma sings softly to the radio, not saying a word until they’re finally seated in a back corner booth at Granny’s.

“So, what do you in your downtime?”

Regina doesn’t answer.

“Perk up, princess. This is only going to be miserable if you make it that way.”

Finally, Regina clears her throat. “I don’t have downtime.”

“You seemed to have enough to vandalize your mom’s car.”

“I’m not talking about that.”

“Fine.” Emma sits back in her seat with an easy smile. “I’ll get it out of you eventually.”

“How can you be so casual? Isn’t this weird for you?”

Emma shrugs. “I’ve seen my fair share of graffiti. The weirdest part of this is getting a hot meal.”

Regina frowns. That expression is growing on Emma, somehow. “What did you mean before? When you said dinner was a lot.”

“I’m a foster kid. The home I’m in now is my third this year. I live with six other kids. I never know where my next meal is coming from, and it’s almost never fresh.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t do that.” Emma shakes her head. “I’m alive. I’m managing. I hate when people give me pity.”

“I know what you mean,” Regina murmurs.

The waitress comes to their table and they order – Regina orders a burger, to Emma’s surprise – and idly sip their drinks as they wait. “What about you?” Emma asks. “What’s your deal with your mom?”

Regina falls quiet. She sips her iced tea a few times until finally, she sighs and folds her hands in her lap. She doesn’t look at Emma, but at a single spot on the table. “She’s a difficult person to please,” she says slowly.

“That doesn’t warrant spray-painting ‘cunt’ on her car. I mean, we all know she is one, but that’s beside the point. She pushed you to do that. What happened?”

“I already told you I’m not talking about that,” Regina snaps.

Emma nods. She’s unaffected by the outburst; she knows she can be the same way when people start prying. “You don’t have to. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t.”

“Why should I tell you anything? How do I know I can trust you?”

“I’ve done a lot of shit, but I keep my word. It’s all I have.”

Regina shifts in her seat. “I’m still not talking about it.”

“That’s fine.”

They sit in silence for a minute, but this isn’t the uncomfortable, tense silence that accompanied them in Emma’s car. This is comfortable, companionable even, until Regina breaks it with a question of her own.

“So what do you do? In your downtime?”

Emma smiles. “Meet up with my buddies downtown, smoke a little, paint the town. I like to cause trouble.”

“You don’t worry about getting caught? You could go to juvie.”

“Trust me, juvie would be an improvement over where I am right now.”

“Is foster care really that bad?”

Emma shrugs. She sips her Coke, killing time, trying to think of a response that doesn’t make her sound like a poor washed-up foster kid. “Depends on the home. Sometimes you get placed in a good one. Sometimes not.”

“I’m guessing this is a ‘not’.”

“Bingo.”

“What about the good homes you’ve been in? What happened?”

“I’ve been in three really good ones. My first home, when I was a baby, I stayed there for three years. They were even gonna adopt me. But then they got pregnant, and…” Emma sighs. “They couldn’t take care of two kids. And of course their own baby was more important than some dirty foster kid.”

“What about the other ones?”

“After that I bounced around between hellholes for a few years. I landed with this woman named Ingrid when I was thirteen. I was there for six months, and she was gonna adopt me too. But something happened, I don’t know, but she went nuts. They took me and the other kids out of the house while they examined her.”

Regina nods slowly. “That sounds awful.”

“Yeah, it sucked.” Emma blinks her eyes rapidly to avoid crying in front of Regina. It’s been over four years now, yet somehow the thought of Ingrid still hits her hard. Ingrid was the closest she ever came to a home. It was like losing yet another parent. “The third home. It was the home right before this one, actually. They had two kids of their own, and they were insanely nice. Perfect suburban family.”

“Why did you leave that one?”

“My ex showed up. She said she was on the run and had nowhere to stay, so I convinced the parents to let her sleep there that night. By morning, she was gone along with four hundred dollars in cash. I left that home the next day.”

“Emma, I’m so-” Regina seems to catch herself before she says “sorry”. “That sounds awful,” she says instead.

“Whatever. I’ll be eighteen in three months, which means I can finally be on my own. They won’t have any power over me once I age out.”

“Good. You deserve some freedom after all that.”

The waitress comes and drops off their burgers, and Emma is again surprised as Regina digs in with no care to how it looks. It’s refreshing, actually. Little Miss Perfect isn’t nearly as perfect as Emma previously thought.

“This is amazing,” Regina says with her mouth full.

Emma laughs out loud. “You are disgusting,” she says. On the other hand, she’s taking her time eating. She doesn’t have anyone to race tonight. The food in front of her is all hers, and no one can take it from her. You bet your ass she’s gonna savor that.

“You really know how to charm a girl, don’t you?”

“What can I say? I’ve got that Swan charm about me.”

“Yes, you do.”

Maybe Regina doesn’t notice, but Emma can hear the honesty in her voice. And, for some reason, her stomach flutters in response. _Don’t you dare like her_ , she growls to herself in her mind. _Don’t you dare_. She shifts away from the heavy conversation as they finish, engaging Regina in small talk – class load, movies, stuff that friends talk about.

Because they’re _friends_.

Regina picks up the check, as promised, and they walk out to Emma’s car in moods polar opposite to when they arrived at the restaurant. Emma sighs internally and gets in. The fluttering in her belly has only increased with every minute she spends in Regina’s company, and the other girl is completely oblivious to the war raging in Emma’s mind.

Emma pulls up in front of the imposing Mills mansion and puts the car in park. “Thanks for dinner,” she says softly.

“Thanks for not telling.” Regina smiles and ducks her head away from Emma’s eyes. “I actually had fun tonight.”

“Me, too.”

“We should do this again. Next week.”

Emma raises her eyebrows. “For real?”

“Yeah. We had fun, and it’s not like you’re going to get a better offer from your foster parents.”

“Oh.” Emma nods once. “So you’re buying me dinner out of pity.”

“No!” Regina reaches over and grips Emma’s hand, oblivious to the sharp intake of breath on Emma’s part. “Emma, no. I like spending time with you. Really.”

Emma sighs. “Yeah, okay. Next week.”

“Great.” Regina grins. “I’ll see you then.” She gets out of the car with a bounce in her step all the way up the long, twisting driveway.

Emma shakes her head and she watches Regina go. Just one night, and she’s already in too deep with this girl. A gentle smile plays at her lips as she shifts the car into drive and turns back onto the road. And the road stretches on and on in front of her, containing the endless possibilities of the future.

Including next week.


End file.
